Catch the Spirit of the Omaha communityand celebrate 20 years of charity events, milestones,community heroes and philanthropy. This is truly a celebration!

If you have old issues of metroMAGAZINE f.k.a Metro Monthly (and you can part with them) we ask that you bring them to the event. A majority of the publications 20 years of archives was destroyed and we hope to recover as much as possible of the magazines rich local history. Come and enjoy food, fun and lasting friendship!

Food and spirits will be provided by many of Omahas finestrestaurants and wine shops. There is no charge to attend this event.

Donations will be accepted from those friends of metroMAGAZINE wishing to contribute to the recovery of the business, which was completely destroyed as the result of a fire at neighboring The Bagel Bin this January.

With Gratitude and Appreciation

Many of you may already be aware of the Three Alarm Fire which resulted in the destruction of our offices at 120th & Pacific. We wish to thank everyone who has contacted us to express their concern and support, and to express our best wishes and support to all of our neighbors who were affected. In particular our thoughts and prayers go out to those whose businesses were gutted by the flames:

The Bagel Bin

Invisible Fencing of Omaha

Prince of the Road

After visiting with some of our affected neighbors we've offered to set up a temporary contact page here at SpiritofOmaha.com for clients or concerned individuals wishing to reach the management of these businesses. Please look for more information about this within the next few days on our home page here at SpiritofOmaha.com.

Thank You for your Support!

The outpouring of support and encouragement from many in our community has been truly overwhelming, further affirming our beliefs about Omaha as a community of people dedicated to helping those in need. We always are privileged to celebrate the willingness of the members of our area to "make a difference" in the lives of others, but never more so than today.

""It's ironic that we begin our 20th year by launching a brand new website, SpiritofOmaha.com, and we find ourselves the beneficiaries of that very spirit. It leaves us more dedicated than ever to celebrate and promote that same spirit in whatever ways we can."

– Andrea L. "Andy" Hoig, Publisher, metroMAGAZINE, SpiritofOmaha.com

Honoring our First Responders

While there are many friends and supporters we wish to thank for their encouragement and offers of assistance within the last 24 hours, in particular we wish to express our gratitude to the courageous and dedicated members of the Omaha Fire Department, Police Department and other first responders who overcame dangers and extremes to prevent this fire from doing greater damage or harm to our neighbors.

We ask those who are able, to join with us in expressing appreciation to the members of your local first response stations. We feel that there's not enough hot coffee and warm wishes to go around for these heroic members of our community who "made the difference" a few nights ago.

This experience has left us even more aware of the significance of the term "community" and more appreciative of the services performed by our neighbors who shelter, aid and support others during this record breaking harsh winter season.

"[These events reveal] truly... the Spirit of the people of Omaha."

– Omaha Mayor Jim Suttle

Our Immediate Plans

We are currently operating at about 5% capacity, but we are aggressively pursuing a number of options for restoring as much of our infrastructure as possible within a few days, while we formulate our long term goals for recovery. We hope to completely resume normal operations within a few months, but are working diligently to restore our most critical services and products within the next few days and weeks.

Due to the fact that a significant portion of our business operations rely on digital technology, we should be in a position to recover some important portions of our services fairly quickly. In particular, we hope to see relatively little interruption related to our web-based services and products. Of course, it will take longer to complete the process of total recovery, but our goal is to meet our print and web based obligations with as few delays as are reasonable under these circumstances. Our goal will remain 100% customer satisfaction and support during this period.

The support and understanding of our valued advertisers and business partners has never been more appreciated than it is at this time. We are working to complete our February 2010 Issue and other time-sensitive obligations with a minimum of delays.

Our goal is to have our phone and web-based communication restored within a matter of days, and to restore the rest of our company's infrastructure within a reasonable period of time.

Contacting Us in the immediate Future

For customers or concerned individuals wishing to contact us, please visit SpiritofOmaha.com and use the Contact Us Page to send us information. You can also email us at Editor@SpiritofOmaha.com, though we may not be able to respond as quickly as normal.

We respectfully ask for your patience as we spend the next several days working to restore our phone and internet services, and to rebuild our company's infrastructure.

Links related to the Fire

Those interested in more information associated with the fire can refer to the following links: